What Small Businesses Can Learn from Lady Gaga #smb #smallbiz

To be totally honest, I’m not a big fan of Lady Gaga. As my family and friends will attest, my music collection looks like a time capsule from the early 1980’s.  While I don’t know as much about Lady Gaga, as say, The Cure, I do know enough about entrepreneurship to say that I think her mercurial rise probably qualifies her as one of the most notable business success stories to come along in a quite a while.

The fact that I’m not a huge fan is actually a good indicator of the effectiveness of her strategy. In spite of the amount of coverage she generates (a lot), the number of awards she’s won (many) the number of CDs she’s sold (millions), and videos views (more than a billion on YouTube alone), there is not a single Gaga song that’s made it onto the eternal repeat cycle inside of my mind. That’s because I’m not part of her target demographic. Gaga is 25 years old and my guess is that in her marketing plan, the 25 year-old consumer is at the outer range of the target. This may be a bitter pill for many of us to swallow, but when you’re aiming to connect with teenagers, 25 is … old (and that makes me ancient). The lesson is to know your demographic and pursue it relentlessly.

One of the areas in which Gaga truly excels is in marrying her brand to others. I often think the value of strategic partnerships is underrated. The lesson, however, is not lost on Gaga. She recently teamed up to promote her new album in a campaign that leverages both her celebrity and Starbucks’ social media properties. If you are thinking that Starbucks seems like an odd company for an entrepreneur whose target demographic is still in high school, take note of the company’s menus and its propensity for pushing the limits of consumer-friendly technology. It couldn’t be a more perfect fit. As if that promotional partnership weren’t something straight out of any entrepreneur’s dreams, there’s more. Gaga has deals with Google, MAC Cosmetics, Amazon, Coty and Polaroid – yes, the original, surprisingly hip purveyors of instant photography.

If you’re an entrepreneur who doesn’t happen to be famous, the lesson here is to ensure all your marketing channels are working together to promote a single brand identity and message. It’s worth your time and effort to take a very close look at not only what you can offer your customers, but what other companies offer them as well and, from there, find the middle ground where customers of both businesses live, work and play.

As is true for most successful entrepreneurs, Gaga engages directly with her fans (i.e. her customers, although she would never address them that way). In true Gaga style, she does this like no one else. Her “Little Monsters” are her everything: she tweets them, rallies them on Facebook, and has even featured them her in commercials. She isn’t just directing them to buy her latest single, she thanks them, encourages them and even appeals to them to create videos for friends who are sick. In short, her fans are part of her life and she awards them enormous respect. She knows, like all businesses, that without her fans/customers she would not exist and she lets them know it personally on a regular basis. Think about it -- when was the last time you did that with your customers?

Finally, something strange happened as I was writing this. I don’t think it’s necessarily “a sign” but it did catch my attention. What inspired me to write this post was an article about what entrepreneurs can learn from Lady Gaga. I wanted to include it in this post, of course, but when I went back to my folder and clicked on the link, the page came up blank. So I tried again, and again and again. Although it’s coincidental, it’s a lesson straight out of the Gaga playbook: strike while it’s hot, because with everything around us changing more rapidly than ever before, it probably won’t be for long.

Editor’s Note: Full disclosure…yes, I “liked” Lady Gaga on Facebook while writing this post.

Thanks for reading,

Melissa Zieger

Melissa Zieger (@HP_SmallBiz) is the editor-in-chief of HP's SMB blog, 367 Addison Avenue and a worldwide public relations manager for HP's Personal Systems Group.